Family History Activities for Youth: 12-?

Curiosity is part of human nature regardless of age. While learning about one's environment and history is accomplished through traditional schooling, discovering one's family heritage can be a fantastic, fun-filled journey made together over time. The following links, charts and exercises can make this journey even more interesting!

Your Place in History

Over the years, decades and centuries, events happened that determined where people lived, what they did to support their family, and even if they were able to attend school. Using Ask will aid you in learning about the events that occured during the life time of an ancestor.

Becoming an expert can be a challenge in any subject, however, with a little bit of research and reading you can be the expert on the locations where your ancestral families lived by using Wikipedia. Each article will have a section on "history" of the location. It is very important to read it as you may learn about borders changing and many other interesting facts.

Timelines are a great way to organize and see the bigger picture in a person's life time and it helps to make sure you haven't missed a major event in their life. This online versionholds places for 6 events in a person's life. Microsoft has a download that allows you to increase the number of entries, it is available here.

Your Genealogy

Enter information into a tree, print and frame it or start your own database using a software of your choice. There is PAF, Ancestral Quest, Legacy and Roots Magic which are all certified by FamilySearch, you will need to download the program of your choice to begin entering the data you have collected. To see or learn about other programs certified click here.

Help Others With Their Genealogy

Fun and Games

Create a puzzle with a scanned photo of your ancestors with Jigsaw Lite. Download and install this software to your computer, then upload a photo and watch it break it into pieces you can put together! Note the link brings you to a number of downloads, look for Jigsaw Lite. It is about the 10th item.